Being a Volunteer Firefighter

Photos submitted by Roxane Neibert, of Jackson Township VFD, and Lacy Hazelgrove, of Brown County VFD in Nashville.

~by Boris Ladwig

Brown County’s volunteer firefighters come from different walks of life, join the departments at different ages and under different circumstances, but at their core they all share a desire to help their neighbors.

“I do it because I finally found my niche and what I’m good at and that is helping other people,” said Lacy Hazelgrove, chief of the Brown County Volunteer Fire Department in Nashville.

“I’ve always had a passion for helping people,” said Brian Braunagel, volunteer firefighter with Jackson Township Volunteer Fire Department.

“I just enjoy serving the community,” said Roxane Neibert, also with the Jackson Township department.

Hazelgrove, a Brown County native, holds a bachelor’s degree in public health from Indiana University and worked in an emergency room in Florida before coming back to Indiana. She took a part-time job in dispatch for the sheriff’s office where she met a former fire chief, Nick Kelp.

“I had always been interested in the fire service but you never see females in it,” she said.

Kelp encouraged her to join, saying, “Yeah, females can do that. Why would you think otherwise?”

So she went to the station, turned in her application and became part of the volunteer fire service.

Of course, that was just the beginning. Hazelgrove, 40, points out that volunteer firefighters do the same training and get the same certifications as firefighters in professional departments.

She got training in firefighting, hazardous materials and as an emergency medical technician, after which she began working for IU Health.

She kept going and got an associate degree in paramedicine and worked with Avon Fire Department as a paramedic.

Today, she is the president of the Brown County Volunteer Fire Department in Nashville, as well as the department’s public information officer and medical officer.

In her department of 13, all except one have obtained medical certifications.

Braunagel, 52, joined the volunteer department in Indianapolis in 1991 and became a paid full-time firefighter with Franklin Township, in Indianapolis, in 1997. That department merged with the Indianapolis department in 2010, where he has worked since then.

Braunagel moved to Brown County five years ago and wanted to help the community, so he decided to do in his spare time what he does in his job: firefighting.

Braunagel is doing what he can to help address the firefighter shortage: His son just got hired by the Indianapolis Fire Department.

Neibert, 62, is a retired physical therapist and said she has always been a volunteer, when her kids were in school, and while she worked.

She joined the department after volunteering to help with a community event.

“I was just helping set up, and pretty soon I noticed I was sucked in and part of the department,” she said.

Volunteer fire departments share some of the same struggles. They usually don’t have enough money to pay for needed station and equipment upgrades, and they don’t usually have personnel to be able to respond to all calls.

Both the Nashville and Jackson Township departments respond to about two-thirds of the calls that get dispatched. In a third of the cases, the firefighters just cannot respond because they’re at work or because they cannot get up in the middle of the night to respond to a fire when they have to get up early for their day jobs, where lives also may be on the line. Hazelgrove said employers generally are understanding when employees get dispatched, but sometimes they just cannot get away.

When the volunteer departments cannot send anyone to respond to the call, dispatchers contact the nearest department. While that eventually generates a response, local volunteer firefighters say it usually results in delays, which can make outcomes much worse.

Hazelgrove’s most difficult day as a firefighter came when the home of a fellow firefighter burned down and the colleague’s dogs died.

“When I discovered one of their dogs, I lost it,” Hazelgrove said. “I had to go out of the structure and … I was completely checked out after that.”

But she said when bad things happen, such as a fatal fire or car crash, firefighters support one another.

Hazelgrove said firefighters return to the station after a run to return their machinery and equipment, but also to talk about what went well and where they can improve.

After tough situations, firefighters check in on one another to make sure they’re all right. They also have a support group where they can talk about struggles with work or in their personal lives.

“Sometimes people think about something that happened years ago, and we’ll reach out,” she said.

The firefighters said they could always use help from people who want to give their time. Hazelgrove said the department does not have an age limit or physical fitness test but said people should be aware that they might be in hot, tight spaces and should be able to overcome that. But even people who cannot fight fires can help the department, she said.

People who cannot physically do the job still can come to training or maintenance sessions and can help at scenes in a limited capacity or even just with fundraising.

“There’s always a place for everybody in the fire service,” she said.

Neibert agreed.

“You don’t have to be out there fighting fires,” she said.

Braunagel said volunteer departments always have struggled with staffing, but it may have gotten worse because people appear to have less time because they’re working two jobs or taking care of children or grandchildren. Brown County, especially, may have a tougher time than some other areas because of the higher share of retirees.

The Nashville station, for example, is not staffed around the clock, because the volunteers have professional jobs. The Jackson Township station is staffed throughout the day, but only because Neibert is retired.

People who are interested in helping can contact the department in Nashville by going to the website <.browncountyvfd.org> and downloading a member application. People also can stop by the Jackson Township station weekdays or leave a message on the answering machine.

For more information on these and the other four Brown County departments you can link to the Indiana Volunteer Firefighter Assoc. website: <ivfa.org/counties/ brown/> and click on the department name, or call the numbers below:

Brown Co. (Nashville): 812-988-4242

Jackson Twp: 812-988-6201

Fruitdale: 812-988-1696

Hamblen Township: 812-988-4063

Southern Brown: 812-988-4063

Cordry-Sweetwater: 317-933-2224